'I'm not taking any chances'

Donna Swope of Hagerstown said she had her eyes on the Vizio TV too. She said she was probably going to pick up an iPad and clothes.

“My son is already in there waiting for me,” she said.

Swope said the steadily increasing throng of shoppers did not bother her.

“They hit me. I hit them back,” she said.

Alberto Calderone, and his son Carlos Calderone, of Berkeley Springs, W.Va., said they had not found any “spectacular deals.”

Still, the duo found the price on a Bissell vacuum cleaner tempting enough to buy one.

“It is getting crazy in there, it’s going to be wild later,” Carlos Calderone said.

The electronics and the food sections were already very crowded, he said.

But not everyone milling around the store was there for the special Black Friday sale.

Dave Edwards of Hagerstown said he was at the Walmart to pick up groceries. “They still have the best prices,” he said.

Mark Twigg said he was at the store to pick up his three children from his ex-wife.

“It is a madhouse. It is not part of the Christmas spirit,” Twigg said. “It’s about Christmas. It’s not about the deals.”